


With Cream

by RedTeamShark



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Author Chose Not To Tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-26
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2019-09-06 10:08:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16830499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedTeamShark/pseuds/RedTeamShark
Summary: The trio known as ‘Team Lads’ made sure there was never a dull moment at the small coffee shop.





	With Cream

**Author's Note:**

> Proper warnings, tags, etc, may come in the future. For the time being I'm frantically transferring my content to a stable platform amidst growing concerns about tumblr's inevitable implosion.
> 
> Apologies for flooding the fandom page.

“Three…” The first voice, heavy with an English accent.

“Two…” The second voice, slightly twanged with Jersey.

“One…” The third voice, a bit deeper than the other two, vaguely New York.

“GO!” All three intermingled, the sound turning to a wordless battlecry as they began their morning tradition in the small coffee shop.

Chaos.

Utter chaos.

From his vantage point in the office, the manager watched on the cameras—silent, but the three men in the shop were shouting loud enough to fill it in—as the daily ‘coffee relay’ was begun.

First the scruffy-faced British guy worked, nimble fingers running over the keyboard as he typed in the series of increasingly complex drink orders. He called them out as he typed, speaking far too loudly for how close the ginger-haired second was standing to him.

Messy black ink scrawled across cups of all different sizes, being pushed down by the curly-haired man as soon as the instructions were finished being written.

The third male, small and wiry with dark hair and glasses, operated the various machines, mixing hot and iced drinks, adding shots of flavor or espresso, somehow never spilling a drop even in all the confusion.

The register dinged loudly, the sandy-haired male behind it counting out change in a flash before stepping between his two coworkers (by some sort of black magic avoiding any collisions) and took over the iced drinks machine. Finished writing, the curly-haired employee slipped deftly to the end of the assembly line, beginning to put whipped cream, crumbled cookies, and various flavored sauces on the finished drinks as they were pushed towards him. Somehow, he also remained spill-free.

Every drink was made, capped, and organized into multiple cup-holders, the twelve beverages being presented neatly by young, smiling faces at the end of the counter.

On the customer side, the man who had placed his order—the man who came in every day at five minutes after ten, usually the first customer of the shift—clapped lightly. He’d been doing this for months now, always changing his orders, making them more complicated. Not once had the trio who called themselves ‘Team Lads’ messed up or spilled a single drop.

The trio helped the man—Mr. Michael “Just Call Me Burnie” Burns, president of a small telecommunications company—out to his car with the drinks, graciously accepting the tips he slipped into each of their palms as they helped him load the coffees into his vehicle. Once he was settled in, he waved, getting three bright-smiling waves in return, before pulling out of the parking lot.

The three baristas shared wide grins, waiting until they were inside to begin their complex ‘victory high-five-slash-dance-party,’ another tradition of Burnie’s morning coffee runs. They slapped hands, clapped each other on the back, hugged, lifted each other up, chest-bumped, and whatever other insane things they could think of to celebrate, complimenting each other at full volume all the while.

Finally, the manager left his office, standing behind the counter and watching the trio with his arms crossed. They turned to him, unable to keep grins off their faces. After a few moments, he relented, grinning back. “Alright, fine. You guys did a good job.” Before another victory celebration could begin, he pointed behind the counter. “Now back to work. The machines aren’t going to clean themselves, Ray.” A mumbled ‘yes, sir,’ though the dark-haired employee was still grinning. Turning his attention to the other two, he fixed them with a frown. “Michael,” he addressed the curly-haired one first, “restock the cream and sugar station. Gavin,” this time he focus was on the sandy-haired man, “you can sweep.”

He waited until the three were hard at work at their tasks before letting the stern, ‘manager material’ look slip off his face. “And for the love of god, ‘Team Lads,’ don’t let the owner find out I let you do that every morning.” Grabbing a broom himself and rolling his sleeves up slightly, exposing intricate and sprawling tattoos on his forearms—inkings that went all the way up to the shoulder and around his back—the manager grabbed the second broom and began sweeping behind the counter.

He’d hired the three younger men at around the same time, first Michael, then Gavin, and finally Ray. The owner hadn’t been particularly convinced that Geoff needed three people on the understandably slow 10-4 shift, but the tattooed man had insisted that having extra people meant getting extra work done. It also helped that he was great friends with the man who signed all their paychecks.

Granted, there were days when he’d bury his head in his hands and mumble about how regrettable it was to have hired the three energetic young men. Like the time they had decided that instead of just throwing away the outdated whipped cream, they’d make each other whipped cream bikinis over their uniforms. Or when the new Pokemon game came out and all three had insisted on bringing their handheld systems to work and playing during their breaks. Listening to them talk about Pokemon had been a serious headache.

But for the most part they were a happy foursome, the three baristas working well together and providing some much-needed entertainment during the slow shift.

“We are a well-oiled machine!” Gavin declared as he dumped a dustpan of dirt into the trash bin, blinking in confusion as Michael turned an incredulous stare on him and Ray began to laugh. “What?”

“Never refer to us as being well-oiled again, Gavin.” Michael answered, turning his glare to Ray. “And you shut the fuck up.”

“Lubed up good, aren’t we?” The Puerto Rican questioned with a snicker, ducking the sugar packets that were flung at him.

“I didn’t mean like that!” Gavin exclaimed, not being so lucky to duck the sugar packets Michael flung his way. “I meant we work well together, you donuts!”

Snickers from the other two, Michael’s feigned anger finally breaking. “Whatever, man.” He glanced at the clock, running a hand through his curly hair. “Hey, it’s almost noon. You know what that means…”

Both men turned towards the windows, looking eagerly to the parking lot. Behind the counter, Ray and Geoff shared an eyeroll. Every day at around noon there’d be a small lunch rush, including several girls from the local college campus who would come to get their caffeine fix. Gavin and Michael had spent extensive hours debating who among them was the most attractive (“Redheads, definitely” Michael would declare. “Yeah, gingers are hot” Gavin would immediately agree), who among them they might have a chance with (“none of them if you guys keep acting like creepy losers” was Geoff’s very public opinion), and what their drinks of choice said about their personalities (“it says that they like fucking caffeine because they’re college students” was Ray’s steadfast answer whenever he was dragged into the conversation).

Once again, ‘Team Lads’ was in full effect as things busied up, a bit less showy than they were for Burnie during his morning coffee run but still their usual exuberant selves. Geoff stepped in on the second register as the line grew, calling out drinks for Michael and Ray. The shop was busy for a while, customers sitting around to eat, drink, and chat while the four employees cleaned and restocked supplies.

Gavin lifted his broom again, trying to appear casual as he swept the dining floor, inching himself closer to the table of college girls with a complete lack of subtlety. Geoff watched, just waiting for the inevitable.

The girls had their drinks and their food spread out over tables, laptops and books among them. As the sandy-haired man swept, his focus definitely on the table of girls rather than where he was walking (there was a particularly cute girl with reddish hair and glasses that he swore up and down had looked at him twice the other day), he slowly became entangled in laptop cords. He took another step backwards, stumbling over the tangled cords and falling against a chair, shouts of “hey!” and “what the hell!” from the table nearly drowning out his cry of surprise.

He looked up to see a blonde girl over him, her hands planted on her hips. Gavin offered a weak smile, only met with a sharp frown before the girl pointed towards his leg. “Do you mind giving me back my power cable now?” She snapped, watching him with critical eyes as he quickly untangled the cord from around his ankle and handed it over. She snapped it from his hand without another word, marching back to the table and plugging back in.

“Little harsh, weren’t you, Kara?” One of the girls asked as Gavin got up. He glanced over, hurrying carefully past to put the broom away and go hide in the office until the group left. The cute redhead with the glasses seemed to be the one who had spoken up in his defense.

“Well, if I don’t have this project done, Hullum’s gonna have my head on a pike.” The blonde, apparently Kara, responded. “He’s the one who almost knocked my laptop to the ground.”

Gavin stopped listening to the conversation as he ducked behind the counter, his cheeks flushing crimson. So much for impressing the ladies.

Ray offered him a sympathetic pat on the back and Michael took the broom from his hands with a small smile, though. Even Geoff waved him into the back, telling Gavin to “take a lunch break or whatever.”

While the Brit was in the back trying not to die of embarrassment the girls wrapped up lunch. Michael watched from the cream and sugar station as a few of them (the one that had yelled at Gavin and the girl that had spoken up in his defense, he thought) approached the counter and spoke with Geoff, unable to hear their quiet words from his position. He was about to inch closer, unashamed to be eavesdropping, when someone poked him lightly in the side.

“Eavesdropping is rude, you know.” Michael turned with a frown, the look immediately dissolving. It was Lindsay, the decidedly-his-type redhead girl and he froze, one hand still holding sugar packets over the bowl. 

“Yeah, well, I’m kind of an asshole.” He answered, dropping the sugar packets and turning away. He heard her laugh, though, turning back in time to see her step out the door with the two girls that had been at the counter.

“Hey, dickface!” Geoff called into the back when the shop was empty of customers, snickering as Gavin came up to the front. “I gotta remember that you answer to that, dude. Anyways, that girl that you pissed off felt bad or got guilted by her friend that’s gullible enough to feel sorry for you or something and wanted you to have this.” He shoved a ten dollar bill into the stunned man’s hand, shrugging. “Said something about you not deserving to be yelled at. Guess they don’t know you very well.”

Gavin smiled, pocketing the money and checking the clock. “So, only three hours left, lads. What should we do?”

Before Michael of Ray could answer, Geoff cut in, rolling his eyes. “You should fucking work, idiots. That’s what you supposedly get paid for, remember?”

All in all, it was a pretty typical sort of day for Team Lads.


End file.
